| The Nguyen regime of Nam Ha, Vietnam was a special regional regime in Vietnamese history. After establishing effective control in Nam Ha, the regime took strong measures to boost social production. Meanwhile, taking full advantage of the time when marine trade in South East Asia were booming and there were no direct trade between China and Japan, the regime established and implemented a series of policies promoting maritime trade, relying on the rich variety of goods in Nam Ha and its superb geographical position as the central hub of the South East Asian and North East Asian trade routes These policies aimed at attracting foreign traders to Nam Ha and laid a good material and political foundation for the development of maritime trade in Nam Ha.People in Nam Ha were not good at trading abroad and the majority of trade operators were Chinese and Japanese merchants. Japanese merchants were the most important participants at the initial stage of Nam Ha maritime trade, while Chinese merchants were the all-time leaders with most of maritime trade in Nam Ha conducted by them. Portuguese, Dutch, British and French merchants and merchants from some South East Asian countries also took part in Nam Ha maritime trade to varying extents. Although their involvement was not deep and their influence on the progress of Nam Ha maritime trade was not significant, their involvement extended the scope of Nam Ha maritime trade and complemented its content.During the development of maritime trade, Nam Ha gradually established some fairly complete systems of trade management, taxation and shipwrecking salvage. These institutes and systems made Nguyen's management of maritime trade more institutionalized and formal. However, since Nguyen was the highest decision maker in the management, he can adjust the tax levels and mode of management according to his personal favor and foreign policy needs. This give some flexibility to Nam Ha's trade management system in its implementation. This flexibility based on regulations had great attraction to Chinese merchants who were the dominant force in Nam Ha maritime trade.The merchandise in Nam Ha maritime trade includes merchandise for export, import and entrepot trade. The trading modes include the free marketing in Hoi An Fair, Nguyen's monopolistic purchase and sale of certain goods, foreign traders going to original production region to purchase certain goods, booking some goods from manufacturers and trading through brokers. The rich variety of merchandise and modes of trade brought to merchants huge profits as high as 50-100% which is a key factor in Nam Ha's attraction to foreign merchants.Within Nam Ha, Chinese merchants received favorable treatment from Nguyen administration in entry policy, economic policy and cultural policy. They also owned a good marine trading network outside Nam Ha. This gave them unquestionable advantage over other merchants and made them the prime operators, indispensable promoters and managers of the maritime trade. Because of the active participation of Chinese merchants, Nam Ha maritime trade kept developing and finally reached its height.Maritime trade expanded Nam Ha's political, economic and cultural connections with the outside. It not only brought huge wealth and international recognition to Nguyen's regime, but also boosted the development of commodity economy in Nam Ha, promoted the development in Nam Ha's material, institutional and spiritual cultures. It made important contribution to the stability and development of Nguyen's regime and injected energy into the full development of Nam Ha society.Nguyen's regime in Nam Ha adopted an open maritime trade policy and attracted large numbers of foreign merchants to Nam Ha with formal yet flexible management and considerable profits. The participation of these merchants - especially Chinese merchants - kept Nam Ha maritime trade developing and brought it to the height in ancient foreign trade of Vietnam.
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